1. Last Monday, the Greek government
presented a proposal to the Eurogroup which included important
concessions and was unanimously welcomed by the lenders as being
reasonable and viable. In the following days, however, the international
creditors led by the International Monetary Fund did not accept the Greek government’s proposal
to tax the wealthiest sectors of society, restructure the debt and
launch an investment plan to revive the economy.

Instead, they demanded
to raise VAT [indiredt tax] on basic services and food and required further cuts on
pensions and wages. In their effort to demonstrate that there is no
alternative to austerity, the creditors only seem to accept the money of
the poor, and insist on imposing the same logic and measures that led
the country into a humanitarian disaster. The Greek economy is
asphyxiated. To keep strangling it is the precise opposite of what must
be done.

2. Facing such blackmail and extortion,
the Greek government has reacted to the ultimatum in an exemplary
manner: by calling on the people to decide their own future in a
democratic and sovereign way. Unlike the Spanish governments of 2011 and
2012, the Greek government has refused to violate the popular mandate
derived from the January election. All the attempts at coercing,
intimidating and influencing this vote by unelected powers, especially
by the European Central Bank -- which is willing to suffocate the Greek
financial system to influence the outcome of the referendum -- constitute
a flagrant and unacceptable violation of the democratic principle.

We
say that Europe without democracy is not Europe: all democrats should
join their voices in denouncing these intolerable interferences and
pressures. Democracy is incompatible with letting unelected powers
govern and decide for us. It is democracy what is at stake.

3. With their intransigence, the
creditors have demonstrated that they have no interest at all in solving
the Greek debt crisis; their aim is rather to subject and overthrow a
democratically elected government so as to prove that there is no
alternative to the politics of austerity. Their blindness is such that
they are willing to put at risk the integrity and the stability of the
financial system and the European project itself, exposing them to
speculative attacks whose price will ultimately be paid also by the
citizens of other countries. We will say it once and again: they will be
the ones to blame, they will be responsible for the consequences of
this disaster.

4. SYRIZA did not create the tremendous
economic crisis that affects Greece. It was the governments of New
Democracy and PASOK, the friends of our Peoples Party and PSOE [social democrats], who falsified data
and accounts, surrendered the sovereignty of the country to the Troika,
and handed SYRIZA an economic and social catastrophe that is necessary
and urgent to reverse.

5. Many international actors have
already distanced themselves from the dogmatism of the creditors.
Hundreds of thousands of people across the world have expressed their
solidarity with the Greek people in their defense of the democratic
principle. We demand that the Spanish Government and the European
institutions respect the sovereignty and dignity of the Greek people,
and that they consequently guarantee that the referendum takes place in
conditions of freedom and complete normality. The democratic will and
the fundamental rights of the Greek people, which have been
systematically attacked during the long years of austerity, must be
respected.

There are two contradictory fields in
Europe: austerity and democracy, the government of the people or the
government of the market and its unelected powers. We stand firm on the
side of democracy. We stand firm with the Greek people.